assembling multiple clips

[David Morgan]

OK, I guess I'm considered an "old school" style editor (Final Cut Pro). I select in and out points on source footage and then add to a timeline. I can create multiple timelines within one project.
How do u preview clips, select segments and assemble them in Vegas? Do u have to drop each clip into a track and trim it? Then move it around into a final assembly? This seems like a big mess. I need to rearrange the order of events even within the same clip.

I have at least 25 captured clips from 4 different musicals that I need to assemble into one timeline. Is my only option the trimmer window?

Vegas 8
Windows Vista

[Jeff Harper]

For one thing David, try going to any clip on the timeline and select a point at which you wish to cut that clip. Simply hit 's' on your keyboard and you have just split the clip. Move to another point at which you wish to split it again. Then simply drag the clip to wherever you want it on the timeline. That should give you a good start. Then select the pieces you no longer want and hit delete and they are gone.

Edit: as I sometimes do, I didn't read your post completely. You already seem to know how to do what I described. You need to hear from someone who knows both, I'm sure they will be along.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by David Morgan

How do u preview clips, select segments and assemble them in Vegas? Do u have to drop each clip into a track and trim it? Then move it around into a final assembly? This seems like a big mess. I need to rearrange the order of events even within the same clip.

I have at least 25 captured clips from 4 different musicals that I need to assemble into one timeline. Is my only option the trimmer window?

You use the trimmer and create subclips. It does exactly what you're asking. Why do you seem dismayed that this is your only option?

[Jim Ohair]

Sony Creative Software - Download: White Papers


This shows a trimmer update in 8.

[Chris Barcellos]

Right Click on the media file in the media project window, left click open in trimmer. In Trimmer window, use cursor to select section or sections of clip you want to use, and drag to the time line. Not to hard, in my mind...

[Edward Troxel]

You can do this so many ways. It all depends on what workflow works best for you. For me, I tend to just drop clips on the timeline, cut out the segments I want to keep (deleting everything else), and then rearrange as desired. However, I do sometimes use the Trimmer and occasionally use sub-clips as well.

[David Morgan]

ok thx to all.

just a little frustrating learning a new program

[Ian Stark]

I'm in Edward's camp for this - although I can't recall ever having used the Trimmer, period.

If it's of interest, here is my workflow:

When I am in the first stages of shot selection, what I tend to do is to create three video tracks - one for 'keepers', one for 'maybes' and one for 'probably nots'. I review each clip and move them to the appropriate track. When that's done, I save this as 'projectname-shot_selection.veg'.

Then, using the same .veg, I delete the 'probably nots' and 'maybes' tracks, trim the 'keepers' (on the timeline, using 's' or by dragging the handles) to get rid of unwanted tops and tails, and then do a 'save as' (with 'copy media' enabled) to my Project Name/Veg folder.

I then delete all tracks and start with a clean media pool of only the shots I know I want to use, trimmed accordingly. If I get stuck for a particular shot I open up the shot selection.veg in a second copy of Vegas and take a look at the 'maybes'.

Reading through this it sounds terribly long winded! In practice, though, I can rip through all my shots very quickly, and having a clean media pool keeps me sane with the complex projects.

[Perrone Ford]

Ian,

My work flow was quite similar to yours. I am just getting started with the trimmer. The nice thing, is that it doesn't add anything to the media pool until AFTER you select the maybes. So you end up with mostly good stuff in the .veg to begin with, and nearly nothing to clean up.

[Ian Stark]

Interesting, Perrone, maybe I should take another look at the Trimmer (although I am very set in my ways!).

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Interesting, Perrone, maybe I should take another look at the Trimmer (although I am very set in my ways!).

So was I. But facing some VERY large projects in 2009, I wanted to find a more efficient way to work. Also making the move from SD to HD is requiring some modifications to work flow. I needed to be faster and more efficient. I could throw around a few hours of DV files without much worry. Doing the same with HD is VERY different. A few hours is now half a Terabyte or more!

-P

[Jim Ohair]

I knew I saw something else on the trimmer...
Sony Creative Software - Discovering the Sony Vegas Pro Trimmer window
I love using the trimmer and subclips on large projects it
helps me stay organized.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Back to the original poster...

With Vegas 8 Pro, Sony has added new functions and buttons to the trimmer that are more like the source window in FCP. Prior versions also had a trimmer, that also was used to review, cut, and move source footage to the timeline, but the functionality was a little different with the trimmer showing footage on the preview (FCP: canvas) monitor. Didn't seem right to many editors coming from other NLEs.

There's a new-ish screen show demo/tutorial of the current version's trimmer available at Sony: Sony Creative Software - Vegas Pro Training Series, hosted by Les Stroud

This is a pretty good demo and will tell the story faster than I could type about it.

Of course Vegas is an incredibly versatile and fast timeline editor, but there are *many* projects that are faster and easier to cut using the source/trimmer model that goes back to the flatbed film editors, that AVID adapted for computer-based editing... which FCP and many others adopted as *the* model for how NLE should be done.

The creators of Vegas had a different idea, and it's a very accessable environment, yet also very powerful. With V8, Vegas also has something that editors coming from other environments will find more familiar.

***************************************

To your other question, there's not directly a multiple timelines function. Subclips are a handy way to make a "keepers" bin. For something more like multiple timelines you would use the "nesting" function, in which a vegas project (.veg) can be dragged onto the timeline like a clip. What makes this work is that you can open multiple instances of Vegas, which is very handy indeed.

Nesting projects may increase rendering times beyond what you'd expect, but for some projects it's a handy editing workflow nevertheless.

[David Morgan]

Seth,
your "spot on" as the Brits might say. After I started working with Vegas, I realized that the word "sequence" is not in the Vegas vocabulary. I am used to working up multiple sequences (or timelines) within one project and then creating a master for the project. Absolute necessity for long form projects. This is one of the major differences I'm finding between the two. I'm still very attracted to learning this app. as it's kind of a hot rod program. Very flexible and fast. Ugly interface though, even with Vista. XP looks worse but that's Windows.
Way too many small check boxes and sentences to cull through in preference dialog windows etc...
thx for your help and Ian for the workflow.
dm

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by David Morgan

Very flexible and fast. Ugly interface though, even with Vista. XP looks worse but that's Windows.
Way too many small check boxes and sentences to cull through in preference dialog windows etc...

Personally, I *LIKE* the fact that it looks and acts like all my other Windows program. It makes sense when it behaves the same as other apps I use. I've dabbled with some other NLE's and they've changed the Windows workflow so much you end up spending way more time looking for things that should be easy.